Phase 2: Interpretation This is the most difficult phase of the design thinking process. Interpretation transforms your discovery of the challenge into meaningful insights. Research, interviews, conversations can be great inspiration, but finding meaning in that and turning in into actionable opportunities is not an easy task. It involves unpacking and synthesizing your findings from the discovery phase to reach a compelling point of view and clear direction for ideation. Understanding the challenge and the insights that you can leverage is fundamental is a successful and innovative solution.
2-1 Capture Your Learning
“Story share-and-capture” helps unpack all the learning that took place in the discovery phase. Each team member airs out his or her story and notes based on the work that was done. Even if the team did all of the work together, they still need to tell their story. Each member in the group records headlines, surprises, and other interesting tidbits – one headline per post-it.
2-2 Search for Meaning
The post-its created in 2-1 are then used to find patterns and meaning. The team will physically group the post-its to find themes or patterns. The team will post all post-its on a large space. The team then begins to sort the post-its by related parts. There is a good chance that the team will already have noticed patterns or relations while creating the post-its. The goal is to sort all of the post-its to discover patterns and interesting findings to create meaningful insights, which will be useful in your ideation.
2-3 Frame Opportunities
Now that the team has sorted all of the post-it notes, it’s time to synthesize that information into an actionable problem statement that will guide the ideation process. You might have the team select items that surprised them, connect the patterns back to the original challenge, or pick another team to share their thoughts about the patterns that emerged. There are many methods to accomplish this process, but the idea is to create the teams point-of-view for the challenge. Some methods:
Write a “How might we..?” question
Use a POV mad-lib
Write an anthology
At the end of this phase, each team should have an actionable problem statement that reframes the challenge and provides a focus for the ideation phase.
This is the most difficult phase of the design thinking process. Interpretation transforms your discovery of the challenge into meaningful insights. Research, interviews, conversations can be great inspiration, but finding meaning in that and turning in into actionable opportunities is not an easy task. It involves unpacking and synthesizing your findings from the discovery phase to reach a compelling point of view and clear direction for ideation. Understanding the challenge and the insights that you can leverage is fundamental is a successful and innovative solution.
2-1 Capture Your Learning
“Story share-and-capture” helps unpack all the learning that took place in the discovery phase. Each team member airs out his or her story and notes based on the work that was done. Even if the team did all of the work together, they still need to tell their story. Each member in the group records headlines, surprises, and other interesting tidbits – one headline per post-it.
2-2 Search for Meaning
The post-its created in 2-1 are then used to find patterns and meaning. The team will physically group the post-its to find themes or patterns. The team will post all post-its on a large space. The team then begins to sort the post-its by related parts. There is a good chance that the team will already have noticed patterns or relations while creating the post-its. The goal is to sort all of the post-its to discover patterns and interesting findings to create meaningful insights, which will be useful in your ideation.
2-3 Frame Opportunities
Now that the team has sorted all of the post-it notes, it’s time to synthesize that information into an actionable problem statement that will guide the ideation process. You might have the team select items that surprised them, connect the patterns back to the original challenge, or pick another team to share their thoughts about the patterns that emerged. There are many methods to accomplish this process, but the idea is to create the teams point-of-view for the challenge. Some methods:
At the end of this phase, each team should have an actionable problem statement that reframes the challenge and provides a focus for the ideation phase.
Created and maintained by Steven Will